Has Your Love Grown Cold?

This morning as I was praying I was thinking about how easy it is for our Love to grow cold for the Lord.


In Matt 24:12 Jesus warns us, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,..."


I was thinking about this statement and how we can understand it in our own lives, and how to combat the growing wickedness. The Greek word that is used can also be translated lawlessness, referring to God's law. So it could be roughly translated - due to more and more people walking away from the things of God (His ways and laws) their love for God will grow cold.


In many ways that result should be expected. The fact that their love grows cold really is the affect of the walking away from the things of God. Its really the same situation in every relationship. If you are away from someone for an extended period of time, and stop thinking about them, your love for them will grow colder. I think real passion requires presence.


Maintaining a relationship takes a good deal of intentionality. Husbands and wives who slowly slide into mutual existence, just going through their days and weeks and months without intentionally interacting and connecting for the sake of their relationship, will slowly see their passion for one another wane.


We must learn to be intentional in our relationship with God, even more so as the lawless of our present culture and society increases. In the old testament, God had the Israelites build monuments or altars at the sites of His interaction with them, so that when walking past them they would be reminded of what He did. He told them to write His commands on the tablets of their hearts and to bind them on their fingers (Prov 7:3). The psalms of David are constantly reminding them of what God did, calling to remembrance His miracles, and interactions with them.


I think we need to do the same types of things to keep our love from growing cold. We must intentionally remind ourselves of what God has done, focusing on the many things He has spoken, how He has touched us, and doing this regularly. Its like having a picture album of God moments, so that if we ever doubt whether He loves us, we can go page through the album and be reminded of all the blessings He has poured into our lives. The importance of this will increase as our surroundings become more God-less.


I think the best way to maintain love for God is through daily interaction, or prayer, and daily reading His scripture. This will keep us anchored to Him. I journal during my prayer as often as I can, so that I can go back and look at the historical record of my interactions with God. This has served as a reminder of God's love on many occasions.


Lord, help us to maintain a constant level of communication with You that helps us maintain our passion for You. Remind us of Your love and faithfulness.